Justice News

Former Navy Serviceman Sentenced to 10 Years for Enticing Minors to Engage in Sexual Activity Online

Deirdre M. Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that ADAM M. SIMPSON, 30, a former member of the U.S. Navy who was stationed in New London, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant in Hartford to 120 months of imprisonment, followed by five years of supervised release, for enticing minors to perform sexually explicit acts during online video chats.

According to court documents and statements made in court, between approximately January 2013 and November 2013, SIMPSON used internet-based video chatting services such as Skype, Omegle, and ooVoo, to entice girls between the ages of 12 and 16 to perform sexual acts and engage in sexually explicit conduct, which SIMPSON then recorded and saved on his computer. In order to deceive the minors, SIMPSON misrepresented his age and utilized videos of young boys to impersonate being a young boy himself.

SIMPSON, of Benton, Pennsylvania, has been detained since his arrest on related state charges on January 7, 2014. On June 29, 2016, he pleaded guilty to one count of using an interstate facility to entice a minor to engage in unlawful sexual activity.

This matter was investigated by the Connecticut State Police Computer Crimes Unit, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Connecticut Child Exploitation Task Force, which includes federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. The U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service also provided critical assistance in this investigation. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Neeraj N. Patel.

This prosecution is part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Project Safe Childhood Initiative, which is aimed at protecting children from sexual abuse and exploitation. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.